Investigative journalist Ivan Ninic knew something was wrong when he saw the two young men reach down. “I saw they were getting two metal bars,” said Ninic, who is the latest victim of violence against journalists in Serbia. Two young men, in tracksuits and baseball caps, assaulted him on a Thursday evening in late August, in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. “They attacked me and stuck me brutally,” he told UNS, a Serbian association for journalists. “I have a haematoma under my eye, bruises on the thigh bone and an injury to my shoulder.”
Just a week earlier, at a Jazz Festival in the southern city of Nis, local journalist Predrag Blagojevic was beaten by a police officer for — in the words of the officer — “acting smart”. “He grabbed me, bent my arm behind my back and repeated several times ‘Why are you acting smart?’ Then he hit me in the head with his hand. He hit me twice,” Blagojevic stated after the incident. Blagojevic had been approached by the officer and asked for his identity papers. Blagojevic had asked “why?” The police officer took him to his car and started beating him.
Media freedoms in Serbia are on the decline. The country has been cited in 93 verified violations against the media reported to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project. A recent report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), painted a picture of journalists in several western Balkan countries, working in hostile environments whilst facing threats and intimidation.
“It’s certainly not going forward,” HRW researcher Lydia Gall said in an interview with Index on Censorship. “What in fact should be showing progress, is rather deteriorating.”
Gall interviewed over 80 journalists in Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The stories she heard were shocking.
“These are all countries that are transitioning,” she said. “They’re undergoing democratic development in, one would hope, a positive direction. But when you look at the documentation I’ve collected you’ll see a worrying picture unravel.”
The report contains examples of threats, beatings, and even the murder of several journalists. It also claims there is political interference, pressure and a lack of action by the authorities to investigate and prosecute those responsible for crimes against the media.
In Serbia alone Human Rights Watch reported 28 cases of physical attacks, threats, and other types of intimidation against journalists between January and August 2014.
NUNS (the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia) has documented a total of 365 physical and verbal assaults, and attacks, in the period from 2008 to 2014. This may be the tip of the iceberg since, according to NUNS, many media workers don’t report attacks.
Between May 2014 and June 2015, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project has received 77 reports of violations against Serbian journalists and media workers.
Most of the targeted journalists investigate corruption and allegations of war crimes. Both Ivan Ninic and Predrag Blagojevic report on corruption on a regular basis. “These are not popular topics in the Balkans,” Lydia Gall said. “There are always people in power trying to get them not to write about them.”
Serbia has undergone incredible change over the past two decades. During the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia censorship was directly imposed by the state. Few forget the difficulties of reporting in Serbia during the darkest moments of the 1990s. Means and methods of pressure and censorship are very different nowadays.
“It’s not necessarily the state going after the journalist anymore,” Gall explained. “But it’s more the state neglecting to properly investigate crimes against journalists.”
“If it’s not physical interference or abuse, then it’s threats, or so-called friendly advice. In some cases journalists are being sued for civil libel and end up spending most of their time in courts instead of doing their work. It can be done in very subtle ways.”
This all contributes to a hostile environment for journalists to work in, the HRW report concludes. “You have to be a brave person to do this type of reporting in the Balkans,” said Gall.
Sometimes pressure on the media in Serbia is not even that subtle. Current Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, has been accused of being overly hostile against the media. He has publicly labeled Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) foreign spies . The current government has also been accused by some journalists of involvement in several cyber attacks on critical online media portals, such as Pescanik.
“Improving media freedom is an important condition in Serbia’s negotiation process with the European Union for membership. But EU’s pressure on Serbia is too weak,” said Gall.
“They’re mainly looking at the legislative framework. On paper it looks great. The problem comes to light when you look on the ground. When you speak to journalists, who are living this reality every day.”
Meanwhile the Serbian journalist associations, NUNS and UNS, are trying to put pressure on the authorities to track down the attackers of Ivan Ninic.
Ninic is known for his investigations into corruption within high levels of government. He founded the Center for the Rule of Law, an NGO, and is planning to launch a website to publish investigative reports.
He believes the attack is a warning: “I expect the police will find and punish not only the attackers, but also the masterminds, so that I know who is sending me this message,” he said in a statement.
Mapping Media Freedom
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
In the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine Spies, secrets and lies: How yesterday’s and today’s censors compare, we look at nations around the world, from South Korea to Argentina, and discuss if the worst excesses of censorship have passed or whether new techniques and technology make it even more difficult for the public to attain information. Subscribe to the magazine.
If you want to learn how bananas helped a journalist smuggle banned magazines into eastern Europe, or how information was passed around via lipstick in Pinochet’s Chile, then join Index on Censorship for the launch of Spies, secrets and lies – our latest magazine featuring stories of censorship and ingenious efforts to evade it.
Expect a lively evening exploring censorship old and new, hear some stories of heroic stands for free expression shared for the first time in the latest magazine, and debate with us what the future of censorship might look like.
From China’s new security laws and South Korea’s new smartphone spies to Eritrea’s agents and the new fighters for free expression online. Where and what are the challenges today and how do they compare to the past?
With an introduction by Stephen Grey, journalist and author of The New Spymasters.
Panelists include Robert McCrum, Xiaolu Guo, Ismail Einashe. Chaired by Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine.
Attendees receive a free copy of the latest magazine.
Index on Censorship is one of the world’s leading defenders and supporters of the right to free expression internationally.
When: October 13, 6:30pm Where: The Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1QJ (Map) Tickets: Sold out. The event will be live-streamed from this page beginning at 6:30pm BST on 13 Oct 2015.
More on the speakers:
Stephen Grey is an award-winning British investigative journalist and author, perhaps best known for uncovering the CIA’s program of ‘extraordinary rendition’. His latest of three books, The New Spymasters, looks at spying in the digital age and how it has changed since the Cold War. The London-based reporter has also reported from conflicts in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan and covered the subjects of national security, terrorism and security agencies extensively.
Xiaolu Guo is a fiction writer, filmmaker and political activist. Her award-winning works include Village of Stone, I Am China, and the acclaimed film She, a Chinese. Guo, named one of the ‘Best of Young British Novelists’ by Granta Magazine and an outspoken critic of communist oppression in China, has developed her own unique vision of the country’s past and globalised future.
Robert McCrum is an associate editor of the Observer. For nearly 20 years he was editor in chief of the publishing firm of Faber and Faber and is co-author of the Story of English as well as six highly acclaimed novels: In the Secret State, A Loss of Heart, The Fabulous Englishman, Mainland, The Psychological Moment, and Suspicion. He was the literary editor of the Observer from 1996 to 2008, and has been a regular contributor to the Guardian since 1990.
Ismail Einashe is a freelance journalist, researcher and an associate editor at Warscapes, a foreign affairs magazine. He has worked for national and international media including Prospect, the Guardian and the BBC since he first came to the UK as a child refugee.
Tim Cross and Martha Lane Fox, credit: Mark Boardman
Martha Lane Fox and retired Major General Tim Cross debate how far governments go when balancing individual rights and safeguarding the nation. This is an extract from a longer feature in the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Martha Lane Fox
When it comes to balancing national security and personal privacy, I believe that your personal data should be your personal data, and that action should be taken based on a case that can be proven, as opposed to looking at everyone in society’s movements and then targeting those who stand out. I am not a fan of the world we seem to be ending up in, and I don’t necessarily believe that it is because of anything malicious. I think it would be better to have a system where your data is your personal property, and there then have to be the same restrictions applied as would be the case if someone wanted to enter your home and go through your belongings or intercept your post.
Tim Cross
Like fighting terrorism, governments have to “fight” with one hand tied behind their backs, but they cannot fight with both hands tied as some would clearly prefer. Individuals will understandably not want governments interfering with, or prying into, their personal privacy, but no one will thank any government if the banking system or consumer supply chains were to collapse. Monitoring cyberspace now forms a key part of any government responsibilities, and is (or should be) included in any national security strategy.
This said, if people fear the state is holding too much data on them unnecessarily and (rightly) demand some semblance of control over what happens with that data, then government is the least of their worries. Leaving aside the fact that government resources are scarce, the idea that some government employee is sitting in a room somewhere carefully sifting through everyone’s email is fanciful. Intelligence and law enforcement have to meet certain criteria including necessity, proportionality and justification. This is absolutely the way it should be. But private firms have no such restrictions in place. Government intelligence and law enforcement agencies are rightly burdened by layers of legality, including authorisations, justifications and audit trails, but big corporations, particularly those whose primary public interface is through cyber means, use and exploit personal details for a wide variety of reasons. While these may sometimes include improving their services, more unpalatably they sell details on to third parties. This is absolutely endemic. Many companies will not allow customers to use their service unless they agree to terms and conditions that essentially mean losing control of their personal details and allowing them to be sold on to the highest bidders. The primary concern of business is making money. Not so with governments, whose intelligence and law enforcement agencies are about deterring/catching enemies and protecting the public.
To read the rest of the debate, click here to subscribe to Index on Censorship magazine. Or buy an individual issue. Or subscribe to the app (free 30-day trial).
Major General (Rtd) Tim Cross (CBE) was commissioned into the British Army in 1971. He served in Northern Ireland, Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. He was also the British deputy to the US-led Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs, later re-titled the Coalition Provisional Authority. He is chair of the think-tank Theos
Martha Lane Fox is chair of Go On UK, a digital skills charity which helps people to get online. She co-founded travel website lastminute.com, and in 2013 became a crossbench peer in the House of Lords
Journalists and media workers are confronting relentless pressure as they do their jobs, a survey of the first six months of incidents reported to Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project has found.
In the six months since the mapping project was launched, over 500 reports — including 61 violent attacks on journalists — from across Europe have been verified and published. Reports have come in from as far afield as Finland and Malta, Ireland and Turkey.
Over 150 reports have been mapped to the states of the former Yugoslavia and Italy. However, as the map shows, violations of media freedom and violent incidents against journalists are being committed across Europe, with physical violence and online harassment becoming growing problems.
The map, which was funded by the European Commission, launched on 24 May 2014 in partnership with Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso and allows anyone — from members of the public to journalist unions — to submit reports for verification by Index’s European Union correspondents.
“Since we launched the platform, we have recorded a number of abuses against media professionals ranging from intimidation and preventing access to information, to murder. What struck me when speaking to some journalists is that too many considered receiving threats as a ‘part of the job’. It shouldn’t be. This map is an essential tool to improve the capacity of journalists, media organisations and others to confront those threats,” Index Senior Advocacy Officer Melody Patry said.
This is the reality of being a journalist in Europe in 2014
Turkey: Journalist Erol Ozkoray was sentenced to 11 months and 20 days in prison for defaming President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by referring to anti-Erdogan slogans and graffiti in his book about the 2013 Gezi Park protests
Hungary: Three journalists were chased with a hydraulic shovel by an employee of a rubbish dump after they tried to verify information regarding a possible leak from the EU-funded dump
France: Far-right party Front National sued and called for the resignation of journalist Guy Lagache after his TV show aired an undercover documentary about one of their municipal campaigns
Netherlands: Freelance photographer John van Ieperen was beaten by a security guard when covering the aftermath of an explosion in an apartment building that killed two residents
United Kingdom: Blogger Michael Abberton who broadcast “fact checks” about the UK Independence Party said he was advised to delete a tweet about the party’s policies after being visited at home by two police officers
